The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 OWNERSHIP: FREE BUT NOT CHEAP 403they are not objects of humanaction. S ) Those who possess skillsor resources that are desired bythe public at a price greater thanzero must, by definition, act asstewards for those who are willingand able to purchase thesedesired products. No matter howsecure his legal title to ownership,each owner must face the economicresponsibilities of stewardship.This, in fact, is one of themiracles of market arrangements.The requirements of the many,considered as a collective unit, aremet by the activities of individualmen and women. The philosophicalproblem of the one and themany, which transforms itself intothe problem of the collective andthe individual, is answered in therealm of economics by the operationof the market. The fact thatfew men take the market seriouslyis indicative of the collapseof philosophical inquiry into thiscrucial intellectual problem overthe last century.!)The Mixed-up EconomyThe so-called "mixed economy"is one of the means by which menattempt to avoid the implicationsof the market's solution. "We areneither socialists nor capitalists"is a rallying cry for contemporaryeconomists, theologians, and "practical"businessmen. These peoplethink that they are saying somethingquite profound and verymodern when they promote sucha slogan. What they are saying isin reality quite muddled - theproduct of a lack of seriousthought. To say that you favorneither full collectivization norfull economic anarchy is not sayinganything at all. Noone in aposition of political authority advocatesfull collectivization, as thesurvival of the Liberman reformsand the private farm plots in theSoviet Union ought to indicate.Pure anarchism, while it may findmore vocal and intelligent advocatesthan pure collectivism, hasalways been a tiny intellectualstream in human history. So the"neither socialist nor capitalist"slogan is not relevant as a philosophicallyunique statement.Mises, as usual, has seen the emptinessof such slogans, and hecalls our attention to the crucialcontribution the market makes insolving the problem of stewardship:All attenlpts to abolish by a conlpromisethe contrast between conlmonproperty and private ownershipin the means of production are thereforenlistaken. Ownership is alwayswhere the power to dispose resides.Therefore State Socialism and plannedeconomies, which want to maintainprivate property in name and inlaw, but in fact, because they subordinatethe power of disposing to State